The Shoemaker's Wife (34 page)

Enza put her head into the dumbwaiter, resting her hands on the trim. Puccini’s crystal clear notes sailed down. This time it was like being in the room; the volume was perfect.

Laura sorted the dishes on the shelves as Puccini and his singers serenaded the crowd. She watched as Enza listened. Her head bowed reverently, Enza took in the notes, the chords, the sweep of the music. It was as if the sound filled her up and her body floated overhead, as light as meringue.

Enza couldn’t wait to write to Mama and tell her of her stroke of luck.

This is my Italy, she thought. The power and beauty of the antiquities, the detailed frescoes, the imposing statuaries carved of milk white granite, Don Martinelli’s hammered gold chalice, the glorious tones of the music, the Italy of Puccini and Verdi, Caruso and Toscanini, not the Italy of the shattered spirits in Hoboken and the drunken, desperate Anna Buffa. This was the Italy that fed her soul, where hope was restored and broken hearts were mended in the hands of great artists.

For the first time since she had come to America, Enza felt at home. In that moment, she suddenly realized how to marry American ambition to Italian artistry. Both had nurtured her and helped her grow. That night, Puccini’s music stoked the fire of her ambition, and she felt her determination rise anew.

When Puccini finished the aria, the crowd erupted in applause. Enza put her hands in the dumbwaiter and applauded as well.

“He can’t hear you,” Emma Fogarty said.

“But I have to honor him.” Enza turned and faced Laura and Emma.

“Send up the dumbwaiter,” Emma said.

Enza cranked the chain, and the tray rose to the upper floor.

“Wash and dry the crystal for the digestifs, and you girls can call it a night.” Emma checked her pocket watch. “Or morning, as it will be shortly. Once the guests leave, and I lock down the kitchen, I got a hot bath calling my name.”

“You have a bathtub?” Laura marveled.

“I live at the Katharine House in the Village. We have tubs. And a library. I like to read. And two meals a day. I like to eat.”

Enza and Laura looked at one another. “How did you get in?”

“Like everything else in this city. I got the lowdown on the crosstown bus.”

“Which line?” Enza asked.

“Any. Just look for girls our age. It’s a circuit.”

“We applied to the Katharine House, but no cigar,” Laura told her. “We’re at the Y.”

“You’ll get in somewhere. You’ll just have to wait for the vacancies every spring,” Emma told them. “Wedding fever hits, and the mighty fall. Come April the girls dump out of the boardinghouses like cold bathwater. Rooms galore. You’ll get your pick. What are you here to do?”

“To make a living,” Enza said.

“No, I mean your dream scheme. What do you really want to be?”

“We’re seamstresses.”

“Then you need an arty boardinghouse. I’d try for the Milbank. They take the playwrights, the dancers, the actresses, and the designers. You know, the crafty girls. You want me to put in a good word for you?”

“Really?” Laura said. “You can you help us get into the Milbank?”

“Sure. I’ll talk to the house mother.”

Emma paid them cash, a dollar each instead of the fifty cents they had been promised, which she dutifully recorded in the kitchen log. They were paid extra because they hadn’t broken any dishes and got the work done without annoying the butler. The girls couldn’t believe the windfall.

The scent of beeswax, fresh from the extinguished candles, filled the service entrance as Enza and Laura made their way to the street, buttoning their coats and pulling on their gloves. They ignored their aching necks, shoulders, and feet, floating home instead on the notion of their own dreams.

As they walked down Fifth Avenue, they said not a word. They walked for blocks and blocks in the quiet knowledge that something had shifted that evening; a scullery job had proved to be a turning point.

As the sun pulled up behind Fifth Avenue, the girls were warmed by the idea of it but not by its rays; the air around them was still freezing cold. Shimmering icicles clung to the barren trees that lined the avenue, looking like silver lamé evening gloves. The sidewalks, treacherous with ice, now looked as though they were sprinkled with diamond dust, and the plowed drifts of dingy gray snow took on a lavender tint in the early light.

“Automat?” Laura said as they reached Thirty-eighth Street.

“Pie?” Enza asked.

“Two slices this morning. We can afford it.”

“And we deserve it,” Enza agreed.

Chapter 17

A SEWING NEEDLE
Un Ago da Cucire

T
rumpet vines cascaded down the drainpipe in shots of bold orange and soft green like fine silk tassels against the freshly pointed coral bricks. Purple hyacinths spilled out of antique white marble Roman urns on either side of the black-lacquered double entrance doors of the Milbank House at 11 West Tenth Street in Greenwich Village.

The floor-to-ceiling formal windows off the entrance stairs were appropriately festooned in layers of white silk sheers, the pale gold jacquard draperies drawn back to let in the soft light of the tree-lined street. There was not a card, a sign, a communal mail slot, or any other indication that the Milbank House was anything but an elegant brownstone owned by a single family of incredible wealth.

Tucked in the middle of a wide, tree-lined block of opulent homes, anchored by a lavish Episcopal church on the corner of Fifth Avenue and the charming Patchin Place houses across Sixth Avenue on the other, this block had character and whimsy, a rare combination in New York City at the turn of the progressive century.

The Milbank House was a double brownstone with twenty-six bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms, a formal library, a dining room, a deep garden, an enormous basement kitchen with dumbwaiter, and a beau parlor. It was owned and operated by the Ladies’ Christian Union, who provided young women without family or connections in New York City with room and board for a reasonable fee.

Emma Fogarty had stopped by and bragged to the house mother about her talented, hardworking friends, one an Italian immigrant, the other a feisty Irish girl, both of whom needed a proper address to pursue their dreams as seamstresses to the upper class, along the park on Fifth Avenue, and in the theatrical houses of Broadway.

Breakfast and dinner were included in the weekly rent, and there was a wringer washing machine as well as drying racks in the basement. But more important than all these lovely features of gracious living was the camaraderie of the young residents, who aspired to better lives on the wings of their talent and creativity. Finally, Laura and Enza were with like-minded peers, who understood their feelings and drive.

Miss Caroline DeCoursey, the house mother, was an elegant white-haired lady, petite and well bred, who took an instant liking to Laura Heery; Miss DeCoursey’s mother was Irish, and from the same county as the Heery family.

Enza and Laura were led to the fourth floor, where the wide hallway was lit by a skylight. A series of closets lined the wall, each with a simple brass handle. Miss DeCoursey opened one of the closets. Inside was a long, deep storage shelf at the top for hats, a hanging rod with empty wooden hangers, and enough floor space for shoes and storage of suitcases and duffels.

“You take this one, Miss Ravanelli,” Miss DeCoursey said. “And this one is yours, Miss Heery,” she said, opening another set of doors.

The girls looked at one another, unable to believe their good fortune. Closets! Enza had lived out of her duffel since leaving Italy, while Laura shared a cupboard and hooks with her sisters and cousins in her family home.

“Follow me,” Miss DeCoursey said, unlocking a door in an alcove nearest the closets. She pushed the door open, and there was the most beautiful room Enza had ever seen. The ceiling sloped under the dormer, and a fireplace and mirror occupied the center of the room. Light poured in the window, reflecting off the buffed walnut floors.

Two plump beds were made up with soft cotton coverlets, a nightstand set between them with a reading lamp. A desk under the window and another by the door would give each girl plenty of room. The calm simplicity of the decoration, the scent of lemon wax, and the fresh breeze coming in off the garden through the open window made the room seem like home.

“I thought two seamstresses might like a room with good light, even though it’s on the fourth floor. Most of the girls prefer being on the second floor—”

“No, no, it’s the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen,” Enza insisted.

“We’ll never be able to thank you enough!” Laura added.

“Keep your rooms neat, and don’t dry your stockings in the common bath.” Miss DeCoursey handed them each a key. “We’ll see you at dinner, then,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Laura threw herself onto one bed, and Enza did the same on the other. “Did you hear that?” Laura asked.

“What?”

“That was the sound of the dinner bell . . . and our luck changing.” Laura laughed.

Ciro figured Luigi could handle the shoe repair cart alone for a few hours. Business was brisk but in no way overwhelming by the docks of lower Manhattan, where the construction workers took lunch by the pier.

Ciro decided to walk back to Little Italy through Greenwich Village. He liked to walk through the winding streets in the warmth of spring, taking in the Georgian-style homes on Jane Street, with their double set of stairs, and the Renaissance town houses on Charles Street, with their wrought-iron balconies and small private parks behind airy gates filled with urns of yellow daffodils and purple iris.

Beautiful homes soothed him. Maybe it was the connection to his days as a handyman, when he’d painted and planted at San Nicola, but whatever the reason, manicured gardens and well-tended homes reassured him, giving him a sense of order in a world where there was little.

As Ciro passed Our Lady of Pompeii Church, a wedding party spilled out onto the sidewalk. A dazzling brand-new Nash Roadster was parked in front, with a bouquet of white roses nestled in tulle and streaming with satin ribbons anchored to the hood ornament.

Ciro stopped to take in the convertible, midnight blue with a red leather interior. The sleek lines of the polished wood and gold brass buttons were enough to make any young man swoon. The car was almost as gorgeous as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

As the organist played the recessional, the guests poured out of the church onto the sidewalk. A lovely collection of bridesmaids, carrying long stalks of calla lilies, wearing wide silk headbands peppered with crystals and floor-length gowns in soft pink chiffon, lined up on the stairs.

Ciro took in their faces, recognizing them from the neighborhood—southern Italian girls with dark eyes, their hair worn in elaborate upsweeps of serpentine braids. Their figures, delicate and curved, were as smooth as porcelain teacups. They reminded him of Enza Ravanelli and how she looked on the roof at Mulberry Street. He put her out of his mind as quickly as he’d conjured her; he was not a man who longed for what he could not have, or specifically, what he had lost.

The bride and groom emerged from the top of the stairs, showered by rice and confetti. Ciro was astonished to see Felicitá Cassio, her veil of tulle trailing behind her, in a gown of palest white. As ethereal as smoke, she looked out over the crowd and smiled at the guests. He had not seen her since last Christmas, before he’d traveled to Hoboken, when he told her they had to end their easygoing relationship once and for all.

Felicitá had just married an attractive, compact, dark Sicilian, who left his bride with a quick kiss on the cheek to have his picture taken with his parents.

Ciro turned to go, but it was too late. Felicitá had locked eyes with him, an expression of shock crossing her face, which she quickly masked with a warm bridal smile. She waved to Ciro. His fine manners and good convent training, ingrained so deeply, wouldn’t allow him to walk away without paying his respects.

Felicitá handed off her bouquet to her maid of honor like a necessary nuisance. Ciro looked down at his coveralls, smudged with smears of oil and chalk from his work. He was hardly properly dressed to greet his old girlfriend in her wedding gown. Felicitá’s satin gown, cut on the bias, skimmed the sleek lines of her body. As she moved, the sheen of the satin hugged her curves. Ciro was hit with a powerful wave of desire.

“You just got off work,” she murmured, knowing the effect her sultry voice had always had on him.

“I was down on the pier. Congratulations,” Ciro said. “I didn’t know.”

“They announced the banns several weeks ago. Since you never go to church . . .” She allowed her voice to trail off flirtatiously. “I meant to write and tell you,” she added.

“You like to write about as much as I do. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy for you. You’re a beautiful bride. Is he the match?”

She looked down at her satin shoes, trimmed in marabou. “Yeah. He owns half of Palermo.”

“Ah, a Sicilian prince. It may take you a year or two, but I think you can turn him into a king.”

“My mother did it for my father, so I guess I can too,” she said, not looking forward to the task that lay ahead.

Ciro had turned to go when Felicitá stopped him. “You gonna give that girl from the Alps that ring I always wanted?”

“Pray for me, will you?” Ciro smiled.

The library at the Milbank House was a beautifully appointed room in the English style, decorated in shades of sage green and coral with glass-fronted barrister bookshelves and a grand piano, angled between the front windows.

Eileen Parrelli, an eighteen-year-old prodigy from Connecticut, ran scales on the piano and sang. Her red curls and freckles indicated her mother’s Irish lineage, but her voice was pure operatic Italian, from her father’s side.

Enza sat down on a chair with a notebook and pen, listening while Eileen practiced. She could not believe how much her life had changed in a few short weeks.

No one, except Laura and maybe the other girls who occupied these rooms, would ever understand what admittance to the boardinghouse meant to her. The last thing that Enza wanted was to lose her room at the Milbank House. Laura and she needed jobs, and not just any temporary position. They needed jobs that would assure them a steady salary.